Fiction Writer's Workshop by Josip Novakovich

I feel in love with this book on first sight. It's brown, antique looking cover, with it's yellow font color and my dream words all in one. "Fiction Writer's Workshop". This was like a dream come true. It was on my wishlist on Barnes&Noble for months, maybe over a year. I kept wanting to get this book, but it never seemed like the right time. I either had to buy another book, or it was not in store, or it was out of stock, or I did not have enough money for this book along with my other book needs. I am so glad I was able to purchase this book. Everyone has such great reviews for this book that I felt like I had to have it. I have not read this book yet, so a full review will follow when I am actually done with this book.

Now the book itself has been broken into 10 chapters and 8 great short-stories follows. Any book that has short stories in it, count me in! There are some short-story collections that does not have 8 short-stories to include!
Chapter titles get me excited. I intend on reading and studying this book after the first one I wrote an entry about "Writing Tools" by Roy Peter Clark. I feel that book will be a great introduction and if I follow it up with this, I will have accomplished my biggest goal in the summer (fiction wise). I'll enter the fall renewed, confident and feeling accomplished.

Without further ramblings, chapter titles are as follows;
1)Sources of Fiction--where and how to find material
2)Setting--evoking a vivid sense of place and time
3)Character--inventing fictional people
4)Plot--strategies of organization and structure
5)Point of View--selecting the best viewpoint
6)Dialogue and Scene--handling dramatic action
7)Beginnings and Endings--options and techniques for opening and closing
8)Description and Word Choice--choosing effective details, matters of style
9)Voice--finding the narrative voice, creating the voices of characters
10)Revision--transforming the first draft into finished, polished fiction.

Will you look at those chapter titles? They are all things you need to know to write fabulous fiction that will have a purpose, style and merit. We all have trouble with inspiration. Who doesn't? I don't think there is any one who aspires to write (or compose great music, make great sculptures, paint great paintings) will say that they have never felt a slump. I am not a music person, though I am great with my hands, I could not be a painter or a sculptor, therefore I have no idea how they would overcome their slump. The best thing a writer has in my opinion are the characters, events that surround his or her life and observe them until at the very least something strikes his or her with a thunder bolt. It usually is what happens to me. After collecting ideas, lines, characters for a year, sometimes two, only then do I begin to have some sort of an idea for a story. You keep collecting without writing a word, but the inspiration to write is something that is entirely different.

He follows a logical flow where you can obviously change the order of chapters you read, or when you write, like for me I always create my characters before I create a setting and time, vice versa. Obviously you couldn't go from chapter 1 to 10. I like to leave openings and closings to the last (habit of writing essays) so I would skip chapter 7, read through chapter 8, 9 and then do chapter 7 and finally move on to chapter 10. So it looks like there is a lot of room to go about your own individual choices.

The chapters are hefty in reading. I've only gazed over them and it looks like you would have to be focused and with have to sit down to read this book with a clear mind, with a pen and paper in your hand. The writer seems to explain things thoroughly, further breaking each chapter down and gives lots of examples from other works, like block quotes. At the end though, there are about 13-15 exercises you can do at the end of each chapter. 13-15! I knew there was something great about this book!

Usually, these sort of books give perhaps 1-5. I've never seen more than 5 exercises at the end of a chapter. This is exactly what I was looking for. I am a hands on learner. And when it comes to writing, well you're going to have to be a hands on learner as well. After reading the insightful chapter with endless examples, you get to do your own! You get to do your own until you're relatively somewhat comfortable with it. These exercises are great because they are highly recyclable--meaning when you're through this book, reading, note taking, having done the exercises you can sit down and go through all the exercises and at the minimum come up with one great short-story, if not more. Obviously every exercise you do is not going to result in a short-story. However, it can be incorporated into another short-story, a few of them can come together, and one or two will become the basis of a great short-story you can work on, applying what you've just learned in this book. So at the end, not only will you learn the ropes of fiction writing in this book, your time will also end with at the very least one, if not several foundations for a great short-story. A true workshop!